Villanova engineering students help provide clean water, sanitation services to Uganda village
VILLANOVA, Pa. (CBS) - Help save lives more than 7,000 miles away. That was the goal for a small group of Villanova University engineering students during their senior capstone course. The students recently returned from Uganda, where they helped design systems to provide clean water and sanitation services to a rural village.
Villanova University engineering students have worked virtually with a village in Bupaluka, Uganda, for the past few years to address water and sanitation concerns. But this was the first time they were able to make the 28-hour trip to work on the project in person, and they say it made all the difference.
In January, nine Villanova students, along with three of their professors, helped turn on two new tap stands, which provide fast-flowing, clean water to the entire village. The tap stands replaced a single-hand pump, and the moment when they were turned on drew a raucous reaction from the entire village.
"Right now, with the hand pump system, women have to wait a very long time to collect water because there's a limited source," Emma Olson, a senior engineering student at Villanova University, said.
"We saw the water turn on and just the excitement that brought everyone, and there was dancing and singing and it was a really cool experience to be a part of," senior Villanova engineering student Andrew Kline added.
Before the celebrations though, one of the biggest challenges the Nova students had to overcome was channeling enough solar energy to power the new wall pumps.
"There's only certain hours of the day where there's available sunlight that you can use to pump the well," Olson said. "So then there's only limiting hours where water is available and working with the difference in supply and demand over the day."
New tap stands were only part of the project. With help from three of their professors and nonprofit partners Kibo Group and Divine Water, the students also designed new latrines so kids can safely use the bathroom at school.
"The latrines on site currently are either collapsing or the pit is full. So they're almost all unusable," Kline said. "The population of the school is almost 800. So for them to be down to basically one or two stalls is pretty alarming."
"One of the parents stood up and talked to us about how they were so proud of their school and how well their school was performing," Virginia Smith, an associate professor at Villanova who made the trip, said. "But they just didn't want their kids to die from illnesses from the latrines."
In exchange for these life-saving services designed by the students, they returned home with life-long memories and some proud professors.
"I came back and felt so much more motivated that I really saw the impact that these projects are having on people's lives," Kline said. "And it's a lot more than just putting some information down on paper. It's really changing the way someone's going to live."
"To be able to really serve a community and think about what their design means for people in a place is a really impactful thing," Kelly Good, an assistant professor who helped oversee the trip, said.
This project is not done yet. The Villanova engineering students will deliver their final designs this spring, which will then be built and implemented at multiple villages in Uganda. Their goal is to deliver water and sanitation services that will last for years to come.